Sasse touts Nebraska support in closing ad

Midland University President Ben Sasse is emphasizing his Nebraska support in his final ad of his campaign for Senate, just four days before the Republican primary.

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The ad touts support for Sasse’s candidacy from prominent Nebraska Republicans and declares “he’ll make Nebraska proud.”

“Nebraska Farm Bureau appreciates Ben’s small town roots. Gov. Kay Orr likes that Ben never ran a single negative ad. Congressman Jeff Fortenberry knows Ben will stand for the unborn,” a narrator says in the ad.

His closing argument comes as his front-runner status appears to be in jeopardy. A nasty campaign between his initial competition for the nomination, former state Treasurer Shane Osborn, and outside groups backing Sasse, appears to have left an opening for a third candidate, banker Sid Dinsdale, to break through.

An internal poll out from Sasse two weeks ago showed Dinsdale picking up traction, coming in just two points behind Osborn. In response to his apparent surge, groups supporting Sasse have set their sights on Dinsdale with a series of ads hammering him for donations to Democrats and comments he made committing to raising the debt limit.

And on Friday, news broke that Dinsdale appeared to have copied blocks of text on his campaign website concerning immigration from Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and others.

Dinsdale, in response to the attacks, launched his own ad on Thursday in which a narrator decries “desperate Washington special interests” that are “spending dark money falsely attacking Sid Dinsdale and his family.”

“Nebraskans are self-reliant people who don’t need to be told what to do from special interests,” the narrator says.

The primary's scheduled for Tuesday, with the nominee expected to cruise to victory in November.